Bukhansan National Park boasts a huge array or trails. I have always taken the Subway to Gupabal Station and then bus 704 to the mountain, but you can also start on the opposite side at Gireum Station. This is one of the most popular places to hike around Seoul, so go early or be prepared to spend your day walking in a line.

Most of the runs are extremely challenging and steep. Almost every trail leads to a summit, some require handrails to climb, and some require scrambling up rocks. Overall, the runs are not mellow enough to really hit a groove, but they can definitely push you hard. Also be warned that the trails can be very rocky in places, so make sure you have good trail running shoes before heading here. If you pack a lunch and a CamelBack, it can be a good all day hiking/running adventure due to the size of the park, and the views from the summits are amazing.

I won’t shoot for any specific route description. Grab a foldable map (though they’re not very well detailed) at the visitors’ center as you enter the park, and pick your poison. Each trail offers something new, but as I warned earlier is better here.

One of our favorite restaurants in Seoul is Baru (also known as Balwoo, or just 발우공양). We’ve only eaten there twice because it’s fairly expensive, so we treat ourselves on special occasions. We went for my birthday in October and headed there again for our anniversary.

Baru serves temple food, which means it’s all vegetarian! But don’t worry, the set meal comes with a lot of delicious, satisfying food that would please carnivores as well. The restaurant itself is in a very modern building across the street from Jogyesa Temple.

The restaurant only serves set meals. The 10 dish meal is only available for lunch, so for dinnertime we’ve gotten the “Beopryun Principles” 12 dish meal, about 35,000 won per person.

The meal started with a bamboo shoots salad and a rice porridge. I’m not a huge fan of rice porridge – it seems to me like something I would like to eat when I’m ill, but it is the tastiest rice porridge I’ve had in Korea.

Next we were served veggie pancakes. These were so good – fried and crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. There were only two so we each ate one.

Next is tofu and dumplings. Again, it’s so nice that everything is vegetarian. It makes eating such a relaxing experience for us and we don’t have to wonder if we just read something wrong or if they chose not to include it. We’ve taken to making our own mandu (dumplings) because it’s so hard to find veggie dumplings here, so we delighted in these.

After the mandu we were served a delicious dish that looked like and had the texture of fish. It was actually a root with a pine nut sauce, and had a pleasant earthy taste to it.

Then we got a plate with ginseng root. We went back and forth on the method of eating these but ended up just dipping them in the citrus sauce and taking a bite. It was nice – not nearly as strong as I anticipated.

Our favorite dish came next – fried mushrooms. Since becoming vegetarian I feel like we could eat mushrooms with every meal. They have interesting varied textures, unique tastes, and sometimes even trick us into thinking we’re eating beef, which is a little disconcerting. These are fried up with a sweet and sour apple sauce. So good!

The next course was a tofu soup – a little tasteless but nice and warm. With the soup came lotus leaf rice – rice wrapped in a lotus leaf. The rice is super sticky and a little sweet, with chestnuts nestled in on top.

At this point in the meal banchan (Korean side dishes) were also served. It was your standard bean sprouts and kimchi, but they were a nice accompaniment, and they were light – we were getting full.

For dessert we had some lemon, cinnamon, and ginger tea along with some “chips”, which included potato and sweet potato chips as well as some dried fruit.

Baru is expensive but provides a great place to experience temple food in a modern and comfortable setting. We’ve read that reservations are required, so both times we’ve gone, we called in before we went. However, we’ve called day-of with no problem.

The location of the restaurant is also awesome. It’s walking distance from Insadong and across the street from a beautiful temple, so if you find yourself touring Seoul one day, it’s a great place to stop in and get to try a lot of different foods at one time.

How to Get There

Anguk Station, Exit 6. Walk straight out of the exit and skip the main Insadong road. At the next intersection (a large main road), turn left and walk. Baru is on the left in the Temple Stay Building. Keep an eye out for Jogyesa Temple on your right – the restaurant is right across the street.

We’ve managed to check an item off our Leaving List – Korean baseball. I’ve been to a lot of baseball games in the US and enjoy sitting outside and basking in the sunshine and scarfing down some good food and beer. I’m not a baseball fan. It’s still usually fun and relaxing if the weather is right.

Korean baseball is a whole other ball game 😉 . Korean baseball fans are fans. They cheer. There are cheerleaders.

One of my friends told me that in university in Korea all the fans would get together with the cheerleaders before games and practice cheers, and I feel the same must be true for baseball fans. It’s like the whole stadium knows the cheers and exert all their energy to cheer their team on, regardless of what is really happening in the game. Cheering is serious stuff. Therefore it creates a ridiculously fun atmosphere.

We went to Mokdong Stadium to see the Heroes, our closest team. Some friends seem to like the Jamsil stadium a lot more but we found Mokdong really orderly, full of good food and great fans. We went to the Jamsil stadium last year but had just as much fun in Mokdong.

We arrived and bought tickets at the counter right as the game was beginning (just like last time), and ended up standing in the general seating area for a good long while. I think if we had gotten there earlier we would have gotten seats, but it might be a good idea to check out the online shop and see if you can figure out how to purchase tickets. Still, even standing we got a great view, enjoyed people watching, cheering, and generally making mayhem with the wild Korean fans.

One of the best parts about Korean baseball? Reasonably priced food and beer. It costs the same as buying beer outside of the stadium, making it an affordable choice to spend the afternoon indulging in (bad) beer, fantastic people-watching, and basking in the sunshine.

I’ve only been to two games living in Korea, but both have been awesome experiences that offer a rambunctious look into Korean life. It’s something I don’t normally do while traveling but have had a blast both times. If you’re ever in Korea, come check it out.

Bukhansan Dulegil (Bukhansan Perimeter Road) is a beautiful mixture of trail and road that runs from Northwest Seoul to Northeast Seoul. The terrain isn’t too difficult, but at times it can be hilly and challenging. It isn’t necessary to run the entire thing in one go. There are several points where the trail enters the city. You can always head to the nearest main road and catch a bus to a subway station (as I had to do my first time trying to take on the whole thing), or you can take on a bit at a time and then backtrack out. There are also several trails that branch off from Bukhansan Dulegil. If you’re lucky enough to live nearby, you could spend all year exploring all that this trail system has to offer.

To get to a good starting point, I recommend going to Gupabal Station in Northwest Seoul. The beginning is a bit tricky, so read closely. Come out exit 1. Immediately make a U-turn and walk toward the bus stops. Continue straight and cross the first street. Before you hit the second street, you will see a couple of signs near a stream (pictured below). Take a left toward Bukhansan Dulegil to go down the ramp onto the stream, where you will start seeing signs for Seoul Trail. Please see the pictures below.

Just to the left of the above signs, the trail begins on the stream below.

From the stream, it is fairly well-marked. Eventually, you will come up a short hill that branches off onto trails right before this temple. A Seoul Trail sign will point you up the stairs to the right. Follow the stairs for 500m or so until you reach a fork. The Seoul Trail signs will become very infrequent, and you will begin to see signs in many forms (like the ones below) for Bukhansan Dullegil.

Turn right at the first fork, and from there keep following the Bukhansan Dullegil signs. They come in many forms, but the trail is well-marked. Especially when in the city, keep your eyes open. I missed a few signs and ended up adding some extra kilometers and extra hills onto my run. However, this was because of my own neglect, and not because the trail was poorly marked. As a general rule, if you go more than 300m in the city without seeing a sign, you could very well have lost the trail. If you’re uncertain, just follow you’re route back to the last sign you saw.

This route will take you on mountain trails, over one summit, through ecological parks, on some back streets, past an extremely lavish and beautiful mountainside neighborhood, past a few quiet temples, and give you amazing views.

It is difficult to chronicle all of the twists and turns, all of the places that you will come out, and everything to expect (it wouldn’t be a good trail run, anyway, if you always knew what was coming). I will simply say that it is a great run. Beginners can definitely take on the first few kilometers before backtracking or catching a bus out when the trail hits a road after about 5km. More experienced runners can see some new sides to Seoul and get a good 5 hour run in. For those going for the big run, the trail directly passes Dobongsan Station in Northeast Seoul.

I know the distance is long, but trust me, there are several chances to duck off the trail. This trail is well worth checking out. Make sure you pack a good amount of water (I brought 76 oz., though due to all of the convenience stores on the way, that’s not necessary) and a few snacks.

If you want to get a more detailed look at the route of the run, then here is a link to Naver Maps simply paste this: 서울둘래길. This will show all of Seoul trail. Find Gupabal Station in Northwest Seoul, and follow it east until Dobongsan Station. Feel free to comment with any questions.

Who would have thought when heading to Seoul, one of the largest cities in the world, that our favorite activity would be hiking? And not urban hiking like walking up a hill in a park then grabbing a latte. Real, nature, steep trail, mountain climbing hiking.

Hiking has always been one of our favorite travel activities. It’s free, provides a great opportunity to stumble upon the beauty and hidden gems of a place, and lets us mingle with locals.

Also we just really like hiking.

Last weekend our friend Jon visited us. We were going to head to Bukhansan and check an item off our leaving list, but scheduled rain made the thought of scrambling up steep rocks a lot less appealing. Instead we headed out for a new hike.

Inwangsan overlooks the center of Seoul and provides vast views of surrounding mountains interspersed with sites like N. Seoul Tower and Gyeongbokgung Palace. The trail at the top is also lined with the Seoul Fortress Wall.

Somewhere along the mountain is a military base, so guys with guns at the top will discourage you from taking pictures in certain directions, and there are some cameras (poorly) disguised as logs or bird houses. Even so, this was a quick hike that provided a view of the city, some nature, and even a temple in a quick hour-long jaunt.

I’m getting all sentimental about leaving Korea. With our time waning here, I’m full with the knowledge that each experience will be the last. Which, really, is true of any experience. It’s a good reminder to be thankful and present always.

How to Get There

Seoul Subway Line 3 – Muakjae Station – Take Exit 1 and turn right. Turn right on Dong Il Ro 34-Gil. Continue straight up the road and you’ll dead end at the temple. There are stairs leading up to the main trails stating at the temple (Hwangwaesa).

For those who love hills or those who want to love hills. This run is one of the more challenging 10-15k runs I’ve been on in a couple of years.

To get there, take the subway to Digital Media City Station. Go out exit 1, and continue straight for 20-30 meters. You will quickly run into a stream, and a sign that tells you Seoul Trail is to the left on the stream.

Take the ramp or stairs down to the stream, and cruise straight for about 1 km. Be watchful for a sign on the left that tells you Seoul Trail is up a set of stairs. At the top of those stairs, cross the street and continue to follow the signs toward Seoul Trail (everything is well-marked). You will run briefly on some side streets. And then, the fun begins.

The paved road up to the trail is a bit of foreshadowing for what is to come. It is a fairly long, steep hill that should get you winded just before you get onto the trail. Continue onto the trail where you will face more of the same. Big hill after big hill. Just when you think you’re finally through the hills and that this is going to be a nice jog through the forest, you hit another one. When the hill leads around a corner and you think, “Maybe this one is going to end soon,” you’re probably wrong. You’ll face several challenging, long, steep hills. At least the in-betweens are full of comfortable rollers that you can cruise on.

After another grueling hill, you’ll reach the summit of Bongsan, which has solar panels, a pagoda, and some great views of Bukhansan. Take a rest here and then happily stumble down a couple of kilometers of downhill before coming out at a parking lot and a street.

Run through the parking lot, and as the signs tell you, cross the street at the crosswalk to your left. Take a right when you cross the street toward the “Goodbye Goyang” tunnel. At the base of the tunnel, you will turn left onto a narrow trail through a small farm.

And then, the fun begins again, with a vengeance. The first hill on this section of the trail is brutally steep, and the hardest so far. Mad props to you if you can take on the whole thing without taking a few seconds to suck wind. The trail has one or two more big hills, but you’re nearing the end.

You’ll start your final descent near some old military trenches. Continue to follow the signs when you get to the garden. This is just about the end to a very difficult Seoul trail run. Pass the big smoke stack, and you’re right by Gupabal Station where you can catch a train out.

Seoul is filled with thousands upon thousands of adorable coffee shops. Many of them feel homey and we’ve adopted a few as our regular spots. One of our favorites in Seoul is Hoho Myoll Cafe near Hongdae. It’s stuffed with character – there are hanging bronze pots and pans, a VW van parked in the middle of the cafe and filled with a few tables and chairs for lounging, and notes and drawings covering the walls.The menu is full of coffee and tea concoctions and quite a few delicious-looking desserts. Coffee classes are also offered – if you’re fluent in Korean.

There’s something welcoming and cozy about Hoho Myoll Cafe. There’s also a definite trendy vibe, since it’s so close to Hongdae, the college-town area of Seoul. Most of the time the cafe is packed with fashionable young Koreans so it makes for great people-watching. A resident cat wandering in and out also provides some entertainment.I suggest the maple latte. Normally I find flavoured lattes way too sweet, but the maple isn’t too cloying at all, and it’s a really unique flavor that I haven’t seen elsewhere. If you’re in Seoul head to Hoho Myoll for an hour or two, and sit back with a good drink and some people-watching.

How to Get There

Subway: Sangsu Station (Line 6) – Exit 2.

U-Turn when you come up out of the station and walk down the street. You’ll pass a hot yoga studio on your right. Keep walking. HoHo Myoll Cafe is on your right.

Both as a traveller and a runner, this run is definitely one of my favorites in Seoul. This run is a challenging two-hour, hilly run that takes you past some temples and other cool sights.

Start at Sadang Station exit 3. Continue straight for about 100m. Keep your eyes peeled for the orange and blue signs and the street signs that mark the way. 100m after coming out of the station, turn right to cross the street (a street sign will be up on a lamp post to your right, and on the left side of the sidewalk there is a map of Seoul Trail). Turn right over the small hill after crossing the street. Shortly after going over the hill, you will find signs pointing you left up a long hill on a narrow street. The orange and blue markers will continue up until you near the trail portion of the run. Follow the signs for Seoul Trail up an incredibly steep road to a temple. At the top of this hill, Seoul Trail will branch off to the right.

This section is well-marked, but keep your eyes peeled for either orange ribbons or the orange and blue signs (pictured above) at forks in the trail. Keep pushing through a hilly, challenging beginning for the first several kilometers before you come out at a beautiful, quiet temple in the city.

After checking out the temple, follow the signs to cross the street. Continue up the small side road where you cross the street. There is another brief trail section before you come out at Seoul University. Head down the hill until you reach the bustling bus stop.

This is a good place to call it quits and take a bus out if you’re tired, or you can continue for about 6-7k more of running. Navigate the initial madness near the bus stop, and keep your eyes peeled for the fork for Seoul Trail that will be on your right.

Head past these guardians, and enjoy a pretty unique-looking part of Seoul Trail, as well as a slightly less hilly section of this run.

Continue for a few kilometers until you hit this temple. You’re only 3k of downhill from Seoksu Station.

This section took me almost 2 hours of focused running – well, other than the stops at the temples and the strange advertising photo shoot I was pulled into. A snack is definitely nice, but probably not necessary, especially since you can grab things near Seoul University. I had about 1L of water in my running pack, but there are springs and convenience stores along the way, so you can choose to bring just a hand bottle.

Our departure from Korea is coming up faster than I can believe. I’ve been meaning to make a list of everything we need to do (or do again) before we go, and now I feel like I’ve put it too late to squeeze everything in before summer comes. After living in Korea for two years, these are the things that we loved doing so much I feel like we have to go again, or sound so alluring that I want to ensure we make it before we leave. Here’s our leaving list:

1. Camping on Muui Island (Muuido)

Last summer we took an impromptu trip with some friends to Muuido, an island on the west coast of Korea just a fifteen minute bus ride and a five-minute ferry from Incheon airport. Now that we live so close to the airport, we’ve been meaning to go back but still haven’t gone.

This was the first time we saw Koreans really camping – like, putting up a tent and staying overnight, not packing it up in the evening once they’re done picnicking. Still, it’s not rural camping – there were restaurants on the island that deliver meat and a hot grill for you to bbq at your own tent – but there are a few beautiful walks and hikes and I loved waking up to the ocean right outside of our tent.

2. Seoraksan

Yes, I want to go to Seoraksan again. I’ve been three times in the two years I’ve been in Korea, but all were in autumn or winter. I’d love to see Seoraksan when everything is green. The hiking is beautiful and near some gorgeous beaches on the east coast.

3. Boseong Tea Fields

This is one we haven’t seen at all. I really want to head south to wander through the tea fields. We missed a trip over a long weekend last spring, but friends said it was beautiful. Looking at this list, our weekends are almost all filled up already. Maybe we’ll swing by the tea fields on a drive down south?

Image Source: Toughkidcst on Flickr

4. Street Food

I have been inhaling street food when we see it because I’m just not sure when the last time will be. In the winter there’s hotteok, a deep-fried pancake with brown sugar and nuts in the center. It appears to be a cold-weather food; the hotteok stands shut down in the spring and summer. So every time we’ve passed a hotteok stand, I’ve insisted on picking one up. Now that our time here is coming to a close, I’ll have to do the same with all the rest of our favorites.

5. Busan

The only time we have spent in Busan was in the first three weeks of arriving to Korea. We loved the hikes around the city and the different feel from Seoul, but haven’t managed to make it back since. I’m hoping to wander the cliffs and visit a few of the seaside temples.

6. Gyeongbokgung Palace

Yeah, we’ve been to Gyeongbokgung Palace a few times, at pretty much every time of the year. But it’s so beautiful and full of great photo ops, and is simply a nice walk. I would like one more stroll through the palace.

7. Baseball Game

We’ve only made it to one Korean baseball game since moving here, but it was so much fun. Chants and songs and lots of yelling made this such different experience from American baseball. Our closest team (the Heroes) has a game next weekend so we’re off to politely ask one of our Korean friends to help book us tickets.

8. Bukhansan National Park

It still boggles my mind that there’s this much nature in Seoul. The mountains in Bukhansan National Park are gorgeous, and Ryan has been spending his weekends exploring and running the trails more and more frequently. I might die if I were to run with him (20+ miles. AHH) but I would love to go take a few more hikes and gaze down at the city.

9. DMZ

This is one I’m really torn on. We’ve gone this long without going, and it seems a strange sort of voyeuristic trip to stare over at the space between us and horrific human rights violations. At the same time, so many people who have gone (including our family) found it to be interesting, educational, and oddly beautiful. It’s certainly a one-of-a-kind experience. We should probably go.

Image from TeachAgPSU on Flickr

10. War Memorial of Korea

We’ve tried to make it to the War Memorial of Korea (which is also a museum), but they’re closed on Mondays which was oddly always the time we attempted to go. I love meandering museums and wish I had made it to more while in Korea, but this is at the top of my list.

With just a few months left in Seoul, I wanted to find some good trail runs that I haven’t done yet. Surprisingly, I found basically no information on trail runs in Seoul. There’s already plenty of information out there about all the popular runs along the Han, around Namsan, and about the several other popular city runs (those new to Seoul wanting to find some of these city runs and run with good people should check out Runsploring Seoul).

Before I jump in, a word to the wise: If possible, start your trail run by 9:30 a.m. Hiking is a very popular activity with the older generation in Korea. Trails can get annoyingly crowded on any given day on any trail. Luckily, things in Korea don’t really get going until about 10 a.m., so I’ve found if you get out early enough you can sometimes find yourself alone on the trail.

For a city of 11 million people, Seoul actually boasts some pretty great trails. So, for any trail running junkies, here are my top 4 in Seoul.

4. Bukhansan National Park- Moderate/Difficult

Bukhansan National Park boasts a huge array or trails. I have always taken the Subway to Gupabal Station and then bus 704 to the mountain, but you can also start on the opposite side at Gireum Station. This is one of the most popular places to hike around Seoul, so go early or be prepared to spend your day walking in a line.

Most of the runs are extremely challenging and steep. Almost every trail leads to a summit, some require handrails to climb, and some are definitely too steep to run. Overall, the runs are not mellow enough to really hit a groove. However, if you can pack a lunch and a CamelBack, it can be a good all day hiking/running adventure due to the size of the park, and the views from the summits are amazing.

3. Namhansanseong (7-9 km round trip)- Short, but Moderate/Difficult

A bit of home neighborhood bias here. When I moved to my first apartment in Seoul, this was the closest mountain. Namhansanseong is in Southeast Seoul, and is best accessed from Macheon Station at the end of the purple line. From the station, it is about a half kilometer or so to the station. Go out exit 2 and run to the end of the road (toward the looming mountain). Turn right when it hits a dead end. When the road takes a hard left, continue straight into a narrow street or restaurants, vendors, and hiking shops.

There are a few routes up the mountain, and even a trail that branches off for some nice rollers at one point. My favorite way to go starts just past all the shops and restaurants you see before starting up the mountain. Stay to the left when that road branches, and just past the uphill, you will see a gap in the fence on the left.

Continue on the main trail, and when it splits, always stay to the left to avoid the extremely steep stuff and a lot of stairs, and then keep cruising up to the top. This is a short but intense run (maybe 5km of mostly uphill).

The Seoul Trail makes for the best running in Seoul. While you can summit some mountains across it, summits are not the main goal of this 157 km trail. This means it is less crowded, and the trails are easier to find a groove on than those that shoot straight to summits.

This part is a continuation from #1. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can try for both in one day, or more ambitious yet, add on Gwanaksan when you get to the end of this section.

This section can be accessed from Yangjae Citizen’s Forest Station. Go out exit 5 and cross the street into the Citizen’s Forest heading north. These blue and orange signs will direct you through the park.

When you come to the white shed at the end of the park, beware of the misleading sign. It appears to tell you to go down the ramp to your right. Save yourself the extra 10km I wandered on that stream. Do not go down that ramp. If you find yourself running along a stream after the park, stop, turn around, and go back up the ramp. Look left to see these orange ribbons hanging from the rails and trees. Continue to follow the orange ribbons through the city for about 1 km until you reach the trail.

From the trailhead it is easy to navigate. The trail is clearly marked throughout the run, and there are several branching off trails to explore if you’d like. Enjoy some great views of the city and some (usually) quiet trails before you reach the end at this box.

Follow the Seoul Trail signs down through the back streets and you’ll come out at a main road. Cross the street at the crosswalk on the left for the next section of the trail starting at Gwanaksan (again, signs and ribbons point the way), or go right to get to Sadang Station.

Biting into my second Melon Pop after an all-morning run ^^

1. Seoul Trail – Starting from Suseo Station: 10-14 km Moderate

Definitely my personal favorite. This trail was my refuge and home trail while I trained for the Seoul International Marathon. You can hit some summits on the way if you want, but following Seoul Trail contours the mountain and rolls through the hills. It is one of the few places in Seoul I have truly been alone. There are a ton of side trails and secret paths to explore (where I’ve spotted a deer and stumbled across a hidden temple), and it really isn’t too crowded, especially in winter and in the mornings. Best of all, the nice rolling path allows you to get into a steady groove while throwing in just a 3-4 monster hills to add some spice.

To get there, go to Suseo Station, exit 6. Walk straight for about 100 meters and you will see the trailhead on your right. Start with the big uphill that will make you question my claim that this is the best trail run in Seoul, and then enjoy when it levels off for a couple kilometers of smooth trails.

Stay on the main trail, and after about 10 minutes you’ll come to a junction where you can take on another huge hill straight in front of you that leads to Daemosan, or head off to the right for a slight downhill. This sign will point the way to Seoul trail.

These orange ribbons mean you’re still on Seoul Trail.

As I said, all of the trails around are worth exploring (the trail straight ahead can lead you to the summit of Daemosan), but here I’ll chronicle what happens if you branch to the right. You’ll start seeing blue and orange signs for Seoul Trail along the path. Stick on Seoul Trail, which is clearly the main path, and eventually you’ll hit this nice little Buddhist temple (about 5 km in).

Keep running straight past it, and when you pass the exercise equipment, head left up the hill. This will keep you on Seoul Trail, and give you an extra 5-7 km of beautiful trails to run. If you run an out and back, then you can go for about 2 hours, all on trails.Eventually, you will hit this exit in some back alley. You can either turn around, or keep following the signs and ribbons for Seoul Trail for 2-3 km, which will bring you to Yangjae Citizen’s Forest Station and Run #2 on this list.

This weekend we braved the Korean festival crowds to head to Yeouido, an island in the center the Han River in the middle of Seoul for the annual Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival.

I love cherry blossoms! I love spring! I don’t like moving in an uncontrollable direction as the crowd pushes me forward. Luckily we got there early in the afternoon and avoided the really crazy crowds. By the time we left around 4:30 PM we were just being shoved in the general direction of the subway station. But before that we got to enjoy the floating petals and people watching. Lots of selfie sticks, lots of flowers, and lots of loving couples strolling under the spring blossoms.

How to Get There:

My school was on Spring Break this week so my friend Hazel and I ventured down to Cheongsando and caught the beginning of the Cheongsando Slow Walk Festival. It was really easy to get there; we took a bus from Seoul to Wando and stayed the night there before taking the ferry to Cheongsando the next morning. It was foggy and rainy much of the time, but still very beautiful. I love getting out of Seoul; Korea is so beautiful in the South. And warmer!

The afternoon we arrived in Wando we visited Cheonghaejin, a seaside fort where historically General Jang Bo-go held off pirates. The mist was interestingly beautiful.

The next morning we set out early to catch the ferry from Wando to Cheongsando. We caught the beginning of the month-long Slow Walk Festival. The premise of the Festival is to enjoy Asia’s first slow city (certified!) during the spring blossoms. There are many walking trails around the island with suggested walking times to keep things slow. Hazel booked us a pension here, which was close enough to walk to the harbor and had gorgeous views of the water, which we could see past the fog some of the time.

The snail was the adopted mascot for the island, including bathrooms! The maps around the island were all in the shape of snails as well. We stayed on Cheongsando two days, enjoying three of the slow walks in the breaks between wind/rain storms. It’s such a gorgeous island – very quiet and peaceful.

How to Get There

For St. Patrick’s Day this year we headed into Seoul for the St. Patrick’s Day Festival hosted by the Irish Association of Korea. My friend Hazel tipped us off and we all went together to have some craic, which I am told means have some fun 🙂 I asked her if we should wear green or if that is a weird American custom, but she was also wearing green, and she’s as close to authority on this as I can get since she’s married to an Irishman.

It was a beautiful day for a festival with the weather warming up. Spring!

When we got to Sindorim a band was playing distinctly non-Irish songs, but it was still a good time. Pretty soon a Korean dance group, Tap Pung, came out to dance. They did a great job, but I especially loved the little girl in the group who could keep up with all of them.

After the dances we enjoyed a Guinness as we watched a few bands take stage and people-watched the crowd. Adorable children everywhere!

This little dude lost his balloon and was in desperate need of some guidance.

One of the bands, Bold Coast, was headed by an electric violinist. Their show was awesome but we were freezing after the sun set, so we headed out to dinner. I hope we get to catch up with them again in Seoul.We didn’t end up making it to the hooley in Itaewon, but did stuff ourselves full of some great Thai food before heading home for the night.

How to Get There

Recently my school was invited to a professional development day, meaning we were all obligated to pick from a host of seminars to sit in for the day. I passed up the reading and writing related seminars for Urban Gardening and Mindfulness in the Classroom – both of which ended up being great choices.

For the Urban Gardening information session, we were bussed to a neighboring international school (Chadwick) to chat with two teachers there who started the school garden about four years back. They covered the resources they used to set up their garden as well as integrating the garden into various learning standards for the students.

The garden itself was a project designed by students, so the layout of the garden was a learning opportunity. The school also grows the plants from seed rather than buying starters. They said this saves money, but didn’t catch if they use this as curriculum too. I’d imagine this step could be incorporated into an elementary science unit.

The chicken coop was built by students and an art project about graffiti led to student-created decorations on the outside of the chicken coop.

The chickens are an annual project, hatched by the 2nd grade class every year. With the annual influx of brand new chicks, slaughtering the chickens has also become an elective experience for older students, and the students who volunteer at the garden every year attend a garden lunch where they eat all of the garden produce, and the chickens. The vegetarian in me was sad about this, but reasoned that if kids are going to eat meat, it’s good for them to work for it and know exactly where it comes from, without any illusions.

The leaders of the program patiently answered all of our questions, sharing the creative ways they have used resources for the garden. Tires serve as raised planters for potatoes, and tires can be stacked to create more room as the potatoes grow. This garden is on a roof with a limited amount of soil on top, so they’ve had to work hard with fertilizer to create growable soil, but said it’s still not the best. They use signs (those huge signs in Korea strung up everywhere and then cut down and left to languish on the sidewalk) to prevent weeds instead of laying down plastic. Their garden was huge, but they gave us a lot of ideas for downsizing to start a garden of our own.

The Chadwick garden even tried their hand at raising bees, but both of the hives they tried failed. They surmised that his was due to a lack of flowers in the area – they are in a much more built-up, urban area than we are in Cheongna without nearly as many flowering plants. If this is the reason their hives failed, we might actually be able to make it work in Cheongna, if we were brave enough. They did mention that the bees in Korea are very mild, and they would even work with the bees without any protective gear, although they kept the hive separate from students in case of allergy issues.

It’d be really nice to start a garden at our school; we scoped out a few rooftop gardens we already have, but they are completely dead and it looks like the soil is super shallow. We’re thinking about trying to start one outside, where wheelbarrow all of the extra horse poo out every weekend to dump it because they don’t seem to know what else to do with it (this might be somewhat systematic – they tend to pile it around trees – but there’s also just a giant mound in one corner of the field). Maybe this would make good soil? Who knows. We got a lot of good ideas but all of the teachers here who are interested have zero experience with actually making things grow. Two of us (i.e. me) even killed succulents this year.

The best thing about the garden was the community effort. The standards that are incorporated range from primary to high school, and there are jobs for any age students who want to help. The garden also incorporates compost from the Middle and High School lunches, so everyone in the community is involved in one way or another. Hopefully we’ll get approval from administration to give it a go. Although at first we should probably leave out the chickens. And the bees.

This weekend we decided to take Roo out for a hike. We haven’t been out since the fall and thought she could use an adventure. Although we walk Roo frequently I also thought it would be nice to get out of our normal paths in the neighborhood. One of our favorite hikes nearby is close to Gimpo airport and consists of a network of parks and easy trails around and up a small mountain. It’s a short 4 stops away on the train. Unfortunately when we got to the subway station we couldn’t convince Roo to get in her bag for the train ride – not surprising since we neglected to practice putting her in her bag since our last hike months ago. So with a change of plans we took a taxi to a mountain pretty close to us for a hike. The weather was surprisingly springy (what a mean trick for the end of January – we still have months) and we were happy for the respite from the cold and wind. As always, Roo and Ryan were bounding up the mountain while I slowly made my way up the steep hillside.We played with our new GoPro (a Christmas present) and enjoyed the view at the top before heading down. Afterward we grabbed some coffee and a brownie, and it was warm enough to sit on the stairs and bask in the sunshine. We took a cab back home but the cab driver got a little lost – Cheongna is still pretty new. We had him drop us off about a 20 minute walk from our house because we were in a strange backroad in some industrial park and couldn’t make a left turn where we needed to. Pretty soon after getting out of the cab, Ryan looked at me, worried. “I don’t have the GoPro.” We backtracked and figured out pretty quickly it must be in the cab. Luckily we had called a cab to pick us up so the company would know our cab number, but our Korean skills are stalled at very sub-par, so the thought of calling the taxi company and trying to explain seemed pretty far-fetched. Still, I tried calling, lucking out that from Cannon ads in the subway I knew that camera in Korean is just “camera”. I managed to convey to the woman on the phone (who spoke the smallest bit of English) that we left the camera in the cab. She said she would call back and we waited about ten minutes, figuring nothing would come of it. But when she called back, she gave us the taxi driver’s phone number. I called the taxi driver and attempted in broken Korean to explain. This pretty much consisted of me saying “Hello. Camera?”. Yet he stared laughing and said “Camera! Camera! Small!” We tried to explain where he could drop it off but considering he got lost the first time with us in the car, the likelihood of him finding us didn’t seem to great. We hung around the train station waiting, and finally tried calling back. This time Ryan called the driver, then just randomly walked up to some Korean cab drivers hanging out at the station and handed them the phone. This surprisingly worked – the drivers at the station gave the driver with our camera better directions, and explained to us in Korean that he would be there in twenty minutes. Twenty minutes and $10 later, we had our camera back. So many times here so many people have gone out of their way to help us, even though we obviously haven’t made a tremendous effort to speak Korean. People demonstrate such patience in meeting us far from the middle when trying to communicate. Our Saturday ended less eventfully with a round of dog training for Roxie and a night out in Itaewon for some veggie burgers with friends 🙂

How to Get There

Nearest Subway: Geomam (on the AREX)

Take a Taxi to St. Mary’s International Hospital. From the emergency entrance, face the pharmacies and walk to the right where the road dead ends. Turn left and then take your first right. On the next block, turn right and follow the road to a park near the apartment complex. Walk to the right through the park and you will hit trailheads for the mountain.

2014 led to a pretty strong standstill for the blog, but with a plethora of photos and nowhere to put them, a 2014 recap is in order.

Seoraksan

In the fall I took two trips to Seoraksan, once with Ryan and friends, and once as a school trip. The first time we still caught the fall colors, although we were weeks past the rush on the designated “peak foliage” dates 🙂 Unfortunately, there was an intense fog. This hike was the same one we did last year (Ulsanbawi) with sweeping views over the sea and surrounding mountains, but this time we could hardly see past our hands.

The next day of our trip was nice and sunny, perfect for our walk through Heulimgol Valley.

Naksansa Temple

For the trip with my school, we started out in Sokcho and went to visit Naksansa Temple. The next day we went to Seoraksan. All of the trails were closed so I was convinced to take a cable car to the top of the mountain.

We even got to hike a little at the top of the cable car, scrambling up a pile of rocks to peek over the edge of the other side. I didn’t think anyone else wanted to go so I crawled up by myself and then ran into a line of fellow teachers heading up on my way down. It was steeper than I thought – my hands were sweating and I got pretty nervous swinging from ropes anchored to the rocks, but it was quiet and beautiful at the top.I also got ample evidence that selfie sticks are out of control here in Korea.

Seoul Lantern Festival

Thanksgiving

Also in November we coordinated a real Thanksgiving, including turkey. For a really severe lack of planning (minus ordering the turkey), we managed to pull together a full Thanksgiving feast. Someone found frozen cranberries in her freezer, someone else had butter to mash in the potatoes (I forgot the butter…), and when the turkey didn’t come pre-carved (as ordered), we got right down to carving it (with hands). It was very authentic, considering the turkey was supposed to be delivered at 6 PM but wasn’t delivered until 8 – very similar to the way the sides are usually finished being prepared far before the turkey is actually fully cooked. It was good we weren’t really cooking the turkey.

Very thankful for good food and good people through all of 2014.

After a very fulfilling and extremely busy summer full of visiting friends and family, travel, and work (hopefully the first and only summer with work), we are finally getting back to the blog.

As the year progressed at our first hagwon in Songpa-gu, Seoul, Brittany and I both noticed an overwhelming restlessness that permeated our jobs. Despite our well-intentioned and extremely kind administration, classwork and curriculum were tedious, obviously ineffective, and frankly boring. While we loved our neighborhood and experiences, our apartment was…unique. Being fairly unsatisfied with our jobs and our apartments, but still digging Korea, we got new jobs, and with them, a new city and new friends.

Our new home is just outside of Cheongna-dong in Incheon, Korea. We had pretty low expectations for Cheongna, aka “The emerald of the world” (self-proclaimed). Cheongna is a fairly new development on the outskirts of both Seoul and Incheon. On our original ride out on the train, we couldn’t help but feeling we were moving to the Nebraska of Korea, as the sprawling cityscape gave way to farms and older looking small cities. [Read more…]

When my family came to visit this summer, we got the chance to head to some big tourist destinations in Seoul that we hadn’t been to. We even took the Seoul City Tour Bus – a hop-on, hop-off route to all the big tourist spots in Seoul- making us officially tourist material. The bus was a good way for us to get around to a few of the sites without too much walking for my jet-lagged family.

Visiting were my 20 year old brother, 49 year old mother, and 80 year old grandmother. We racked our brains for events that would please everybody and came up with the following Seoul activities.

Namsangol Hanok Village

The Hanok Village was surprisingly interesting, mostly because of our volunteer tour guide, Reggie, a high school student practicing his English and nervously sharing historical anecdotes about the different houses.Reggie showed us how to play an ancient game of toss the stick into the bucket, and assured us that he had never made it in, either. We all failed. I highly suggest accepting one of these free tours. They were wearing green shirts and sitting outside the entrance to the village, and they told us they also have volunteers at a few other sites in Seoul. It made the walk around the village a lot more informative and it’s nice to talk to Koreans while in Korea, duh.

How to Get There:
Chungmuro Station (Seoul Subway Line 3 & 4), Exit 4.
Walk along Hanongmaeul-gil st. for 5 minutes.

**Pets are allowed on a leash!

Namsan

Ryan and I have been to Namsan a few times (not all of them have been our favorite – the horde of people on spring nights is pretty unbearable). However, the tour bus made Namsan a nice, short, accessible trip. Unfortunately it was a hazy day, so the view wasn’t spectacular. My brother and I walked further up the mountain near N. Seoul Tower, but didn’t go up because the price is horrendous.

We looked at the “locks of love”, a tradition where couples secure a lock to the fence and throw the key over. Signs everywhere asked not to throw them over though, instead asking them to put them in a cute little postal box.

How to Get There:

Myeong-dong Station (#424) on Line 4, Exit 3

Changdeokgung Secret Garden

Our last stop was Changdeokgung for a tour of the Secret Garden. Reservations had to be made in advance, so we reserved an English tour, which can be reserved here. The group was huge and it was really hard to hear our tour guide, but the tour was refreshingly different from other Korean palaces, with ponds, trees, and random buildings popping up on our little wander through the wilderness.

For my family’s visit in June, we decided to head to our first Korean baseball game. After watching some games on TV and hearing from others, we anticipated Korean baseball games to be way more fun to attend than American games. We headed to Jamsil stadium to watch the Doosan Bears and the LG Twins.

We attempted to buy tickets online in advance but never did manage to figure it out (there appear to be great directions here but we haven’t tried again). We just showed up at the stadium before the game and bought tickets. At first this seemed bad; the tickets were for a general area without assigned seats, and everyone was sprawled on the empty seats, which were covered with food and blankets. Families were having picnics on the upper walking-area, and I thought we were going to spend the whole game standing up, with my grandma (in her eighties and visiting Korea!) standing the whole time. Luckily, once we started asking around, families very happily moved their jackets and food and other goods and offered us seats.

The Korean fans didn’t disappoint; the whole game was spent banging clapsticks together, singing and chanting, and otherwise drinking cheap beer and eating fried chicken which people just carried into the stadium. Ryan even switched allegiances midway through the game because the Doosan Bears fans were impressively rowdy.
Refrains of “Fighting! Fighting!” repeated throughout the game, a word that sounds more like “Whiting! Whiting!”. Ryan spent days after his marathon trying to translate “whiting” from Korean to English. It’s chanted at sporting events throughout Korea, like “Go! Go!”.

Hopefully we’ll be heading to another game this season!

How to Get There

Take Line 2 to Sports Complex Station and take exit number 5. The stadium is right in front of the exit.

In May we met up with a few friends to head to Bukhansan National Park in Seoul for a hike. Ryan had been to the park once before and had an awesome time previously, so we were both excited for the trip. Bukhansan is situated in the middle of Seoul. It’s still so crazy how, with such an overwhelming amount of people and buildings, these mountains just spring up from the middle and are so quiet, clean, and peaceful.

We ended up taking an entirely different route than Ryan took before. I was a little bit terrified of the steep, slick rocks on the way up, but after being assured that we weren’t going to take the same route on the way back, I felt better. Going down would havebeen really difficult. We used ropes attached to the rocks to haul ourselves up. There were less people than some other hikes we’ve been on here in Korea, and it was a really fun and challenging hike up.

The day was a little hazy so we didn’t get those beautiful views of the city stretching forever before us, but got great views of the mountains surrounding us.

Our new friend Hyuna had done this hike countless times. On the way up we had some good chats about yoga, being vegetarian in Korea, and hiking, sneaking in a few yoga poses at the top.

On our way down we came across a giant Buddha situated in the valley floor. We could see him from nearly the top of the mountain and slowly made our way down the valley. Our route took us right on by.

And then there were these little guys…

How to Get There

When we got Roxie, she loved being outside, but long walks were not her forte. A week after adopting her, we walked her to Olympic Park and back (about 4 miles round trip). She slept solidly for the next two days. Within a month we were walking to Olympic Park regularly and Roxie was ready to play again after a drink of water at home. After that we started to work on running. Unfortunately for me, Roxie has to sniff everything when she is with just me or just Brittany, so she can’t run alone, but if we run together, Roxie can run about a kilometer now without stopping, and anytime we go up or down stairs we go at full speed. We always break into a run for short intervals during walks.

With better stamina, Roo was ready for her first hike. We have to walk about a mile to get to Namhansanseong and then it’s about a 3 mile hike each way. Roxie started up the mountain like it was no problem. With her Roo smile we ran ahead of Brittany on the trail and then ran back to Brittany. Roo wanted to run up the hills and jump up the rocks.

By the time we neared the top, she was pretty much beat. She starting deciding random places on the trail were good places to lay down and dragging behind. But since we were close to the top, we finished the hike and took a long rest at the top.

Roo must have been revamped from her rest, because she turned the downhill course into a playground. We ran full speed down the mountain true mountain-stumblin’ style. At the bottom, we gave Roo a break and took a taxi home. After the 7 difficult miles, she was still better off than her first trip to Olympic Park, but she still passed out for most of the afternoon in her kennel^^

One of our favorite dessert discoveries in Korea has been Honey Chip Ice Cream. Basically, a piece of honeycomb is just chopped directly off a huge honeycomb block and placed on your ice cream, with the warning of the possibility of bees stuck in the honeycomb (luckily we haven’t experienced this yet).

After I tried it the first time with one of our Korean co-workers, Jo, Ryan and I started noticing honey chip ice cream stores left and right. But some are better than others.

Softree: Softree has two locations (Hongdae and Garosugil), and was the place that Jo and her friends raved about. This is the place we would recommend; the ice cream is absurdly rich and creamy, and the honeycomb is for some reason a little softer (the honeycomb sometimes has a tendency to leave behind a waxy piece or two in your teeth, but the honeycomb at Softree doesn’t do that as much.) The shop in Hongdae is just a take-out joint with nowhere to sit, and the line is usually curved around a few times (even in the winter!) whereas the one in Garosugil has a few small seating areas and seemed to be a bit less crowded.

Sweetruck: What we assumed to be a knock-off of Softree (due to the similar names), but may or may not be, we’ve seen Sweetruck locations in Gangnam and Seoul but know that there are branches throughout Seoul and Korea. This is our close second favorite, and was almost as good as Softree. One time the honeycomb seemed much sweeter than normal, almost like the honeycomb itself was made of sugar. We debated whether it was still real honeycomb or some artificial honeycomb creation; who knows?

Schneeballen: Located in Hongdae, we took Kaite here when she was visiting because Softree was out of honeycomb. The ice cream here wasn’t nearly as rich as at Softree or Sweetruck. It was still a good dessert, but the ice cream wasn’t nearly as rich and creamy. We ended up taking Kaite to Softree when she was back two weeks later.

Wherever you go, the portions are a nice small size for how sweet and rich the dessert is. You can order in a cone or a cup, but it’s best to use the spoon to break up the honeycomb and mix it with the ice cream, so a cup is recommended. Happy eating 🙂

On April 5th Ryan’s sister, Kaite, who was on her way to travel in Thailand, had a 12-hour layover here. We met her in the morning for a quick jaunt around Seoul.

After meeting Kaite way too early for Seoul (which usually wakes up around 10 o’clock in the morning, including the opening of Starbucks), we started near Yeouido Park, thinking we could catch some views of the cherry blossoms. But without proper research somehow never made our way to the actual park. Instead, we walked around the Han river, Kaite getting to experience the strange blend of a K-pop show and foot race.

After a quick wander around the area, we caught a cab to Namsan, where we did find a lovely park full of cherry blossoms. Two years ago Kaite visited us in DC when the blossoms were blooming, and came just in time again this year. [Read more…]

We spent much of the winter confused about other people’s perception of how miserable winter is in Seoul. A lot of people tended to refer to winter as a dismal, dreary, endless wasteland. Yes, it was cold; it was winter. But it didn’t seem too bad.

Until spring came. In retrospect, winter in Seoul did seem awfully dreary. And endless. Fits of giggles followed the first day I didn’t have to wear a puffy coat to walk to work and could sit outside comfortably for longer than a few minutes. Coming from Colorado, we are pretty used to winter. The problem, I think, stems more from being crammed up in our tiny, yellow-linoleumed apartment for 5 months with only the end-of-winter realization that taxis in Seoul are absurdly affordable.

Another thing that made winter seem soooooo long was the fact that everyone was hibernating inside. Now that everyone is out and about, people exercising on random equipment in the park, teachers walking a group of kindergarten students down the stream to explore, or middle-aged men blaring their radios as they bike by, I realize how quiet winter was. Our favorite neighborhood stream to walk on, Seongnaecheon (성내펀), is now packed with people beot-ggot nori (벚꽃 놀이), a Korean word that means “cherry blossom viewing” but translates to “cherry blossom enjoying”. Yes, the act has its own verb here, and no wonder. Cherry blossom trees are everywhere, and have the wonderful ability to make you feel very, very happy. The whimsical swirl of the petals falling down seemed to make everyone laugh, ooh and ahh (and, of course, the Korean version “oohwaaaa”). Even our dog lost her mind happily chasing the wind-blown petals down the street.

Now that spring is here, it’s a little difficult to fathom doing a Seoul winter all over again this year. I’m sure it will be better once the absurd heat of July and August comes rolling in. For now, we are enjoying the wonderfully consistent, mild spring temperatures and beautiful cherry blossoms and flowers in Seoul. Cherry blossom festivals are everywhere in Korea; our own local festival at Seokchon Lake is this Saturday, and we’re hoping the blossoms hold out until then. For now, pictures from our neighborhood walk:

Where: Seongnaecheon (Stream)

Closest Station: Line 5/Gaerong Station

Directions: Exit Gaerong Station at Exit 1 and turn right out of the exit. Walk 3 blocks. Stairs down to the stream will be on your right.

Every year thousands of people trek to the Southern edge of South Korea to view the miracle of the Jindo Sea Parting. Dramatic tidal changes cause a land bridge to appear between the island of Jindo and a smaller nearby island, allowing people to walk through the ocean Moses-style from one to the other.

We signed up for a trip with Adventure Korea and hopped on the bus early Saturday morning prepared for the 6-hour bus ride, about as far as you can go from Seoul while staying in mainland Korea. When we first arrived in Jindo we went to a traditional Korean concert and opera, complete with awesome drummers, serious singers, and some talented hat tassel dancers (really, they swing around in unison).

Photo by Kari Killion Stiles

Photo by Kari Killion Stiles

Photo by Kari Killion Stiles

After the show we headed to the Jindo Training Center. We’ve noticed an interesting love-hate relationship with dogs, particularly large ones, here in Korea, but the Jindo is an exception. The Jindo dog is designated as a National Treasure in Korea (Natural Monument #53, to be exact), and is known for its loyalty. Jindo (Island) takes its dogs seriously; any dog that isn’t a purebred Jindo that comes to the island must be sterile, and purebred Jindos born on Jindo Island are microchipped and cannot legally be exported (or so we have heard.) We stood out in the rain to watch the Jindo show.

The dogs jumped through a lot of hoops, including hoops lit on fire. The announcer assured us, “This is not animal cruelty!”

That evening there was a festival party, which was a blend of 50-year-old ajummas dancing on the stage, a horde of foreigners with our tour group, and k-pop groups doing choreographed dances over the most recent k-pop hits.

Photo by Kari Killion Stiles

Photo by Kari Killion Stiles

Photo by Kari Killion Stiles

The next morning was an early 4 AM wake-up to catch the low tide. We were informed the night before that it was unlikely we would be able to walk all the way; the real official sea-parting would be happening Monday night. We donned $8 neon-orange waterproof boots and set out to wade through the ocean with hundreds of other people, torches in hand.

Photo by Kari Killion Stiles

The water was mid-calf height most of the time, so it was really more like wading far into the ocean than actually experiencing a miraculous sea-parting. Smart quips all around us commented that it was a “somewhat-parting”. Still, it was a unique experience to walk out into the ocean, surrounded by water, giving the illusion of walking on water. We didn’t make it to the other island before we were told to get out of the water (we didn’t even see the other island the whole time), but did get to enjoy a lovely fireworks show while standing in the middle of the water.

Photo by Kari Killion Stiles

After getting more sleep, we woke up to a somewhat clearer day and got to see the other islands for the first time.

The tale behind the Jindo Sea Parting is based on an old Korean legend. Sometime around the 17th century a small village on Jindo was plagued by a pack of tigers. Seeking to escape the tigers, the villagers traveled by raft to Modo, a nearby island. But lo and behold, they forgot Grandma Bbong behind. (I wish they would explain exactly under what circumstances Grandma Bbong got left behind, but alas, it doesn’t say). Everyday Grandma Bbong prayed to be reunited with her family. In answer to her prayers, a land bridge appeared and she was able to walk to her family on Modo.

All accounts of the story say Grandma Bbong died shortly thereafter, some even stating that she died from exhaustion after walking the land bridge, dying in her family’s arms. At the festival people pay their respects to statues of Grandma Bbong, leaving money and messages behind.

After visiting Grandma Bbong, we finished up the festival visiting the Jindo puppies. One of the girls from our group bought a puppy here. We are curious (and somewhat concerned) about the fate of the puppy, with the restrictions on “exporting” Jindo dogs, but hope that the adorable fluffball has found a happy home. Coo away: